Julian Van Hauson
Saint Anthony on the Rails
Gradually, I came to know
He in the ticket office is God,
Granting licence to souls
To travel where it’s good.
One day a notice said, ‘Position closed’;
And all Heaven went dry.
I couldn’t speak to God;
The loaded trains had gone,
Riddling geography like blue veins
Through cheese. I stood
Beneath our milky mother moon,
Bemused as a sick owl.
And then the demons came,
From a home win one station up:
Striped they were, emblazoned
With vernacular blasphemy,
And with girls whose legs went on
For ever and ever.
I felt the exhilaration,
The threat - was tempted ...
But then God opened the window,
And robust angels led the way
To penitence and excess fares.
And thus I was saved.
Today I pray in queue,
Collect my ticket,
And ride the bright narrowness
Away from the thrills of Hell.
God is at His console,
And I shall be canonised.
Julian Van Hauson is currently working on his collection Survivor. He is the author of a substantial body of work accumulated over thirty years of writing.
Page(s) 69
magazine list
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Dream Catcher
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- French Literary Review, The
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- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
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- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- Quarto
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- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
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- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The